Nutrition Questions

Been losing weight pretty solidly for the past six months, with a combination of weight lifting, AM cardio, and a cleaner diet. My weight loss has stall at around 275 (was 300 or so at Christmas) and I'm trying to change up my diet to start that weight loss again.

This is my normal routine.

8am: black coffee before morning cardio.

9am: 1 cup of all bran with 1/2 cup of semi-skim milk, protein shake with a raw egg, half cup of oats, quarter cup of frozen raspberries. I use a full scoop of whey isolate.

11am: workout, drink BCAAs before and during. Purchased a Bowflex recently (new contract for work, have to be home most of the time), so it takes about an hour for a good high-intensity workout.

12pm: post workout shake, with a tbs of heavy cream, half cup of milk, scoop of whey isolate, and a cup of natural ice cream. I did some reading, and apparently simple sugars are really good for you after a workout, something about a controlled insulin spike?

3pm: usually a fairly light meal, 100 grams of sandwich meat and about a 100 grams of cheese with a few pickles.

6pm: dinner is usually some form of grilled protein, with either stir-fried or steamed veggies and a salad. I'm guessing I'm eating around 12-16 ounces of meat? Usually three chicken thighs.

9pm: salad with a tin of tuna and a few tablespoons of high-fat dressing.

11pm: bedtime shake, normally just has a tbs of heavy cream, cup of water, and a scoop of whey.

Here are my concerns/questions:

1.) My BMR and activity level puts me at around 3400 calories per day to MAINTAIN. Is this possibly right? I am a really big guy, and I've put on an awesome amount of muscle recently (did my first 300 bench press the other day), but would eating 2900 calories really be considered a "weight loss" number? This seems way too high, considering the amount of fat I still have to lose.

2.) Is trying to cause a controlled insulin spike in the after workout shake a good idea? I'm a genetic endomorph, and while I don't have any concerns for diabetes, I want to make sure this has a benefit other than a mighty tasty shake.

3.) Should I be trying to work in any more activity? I fairly active due to my job, and workout 6 days a week. Morning cardio each morning is a fairly good pace walk, up more hills than not. I also do a ton of outside work and play squash twice a week.

4.) How accurate are some of those bodyfat testers? I have a scale that tests, as well as a handheld device. They both place me around 25% bodyfat, as well as the online tests that use measurements, but is there a more accurate way to test it? I heard a lot of talk about callipers recently.

5.) I've been working on timing my carbs recently. At breakfast I make sure to have some complex carbs, and then after the workout I load up on simple sugars. Other than that, my diet is fairly low carb, high protein, moderate fat. Is that viable, long term? I have done Atkins in the past, but I found that I was not able to do the intensity that I previously did.

I noticed in your diet your taking in a lot of calorie dense dairy products. Cream, cheese and ice cream are not the best things to include in your diet if you are an endo, that cheese alone would have around 30g of fat, and 20 of it would saturated. Having a post workout insulin spike is a great idea, but I would suggest something like gatorade powder instead of ice cream, and just drink it alone, and your protein shake right after. As far as the carbs go, a good rule of thumb for a true endomorph, is to stick to 100-150 grams of carbs per day on a cut. Thats not much but it allows you to have carbs twice per day, with breakfast and post workout, and has always worked for me and others Ive suggested this too.

in stead of lunch meat try cooking a extra chicken breast and replace the bread with brown rice. ditch heavy cream and ice cream all together even if you replace those calories with better stuff like cottage cheese or natty peanut butter and stuff along those lines you'll see better results faster.

what the macros for you typical days diet?

also i seems like your consuming a pretty high amount of sodium between the pickles and sandwich meats (i assume you mean cold cut) is water retention a issue?

if these are products that are all natural...I don't see why you wouldn't use them..in a cut, or any other time of your life. The enemy here is not cream and cheese...the enemy here is processed cheese and cream induced with other ingredients that are not natural.

1.) My BMR and activity level puts me at around 3400 calories per day to MAINTAIN. Is this possibly right? I am a really big guy, and I've put on an awesome amount of muscle recently (did my first 300 bench press the other day), but would eating 2900 calories really be considered a "weight loss" number? This seems way too high, considering the amount of fat I still have to lose.sounds about right to me, lower than that and you will hit a plateau again sooner, and lower your metabolism

2.) Is trying to cause a controlled insulin spike in the after workout shake a good idea? I'm a genetic endomorph, and while I don't have any concerns for diabetes, I want to make sure this has a benefit other than a mighty tasty shake.nope, no significant evidence it helps, avoiding the sugar + insulin spike is more valuable for fat loss

3.) Should I be trying to work in any more activity? I fairly active due to my job, and workout 6 days a week. Morning cardio each morning is a fairly good pace walk, up more hills than not. I also do a ton of outside work and play squash twice a week.More important to stay realistic. you are better off doing an activity level you feel good about maintaining long term than trying to rush things

4.) How accurate are some of those bodyfat testers? I have a scale that tests, as well as a handheld device. They both place me around 25% bodyfat, as well as the online tests that use measurements, but is there a more accurate way to test it? I heard a lot of talk about callipers recently.calipers are ok, all of those are about as accurate as each other, which is not very. the mirror is a better gauge

5.) I've been working on timing my carbs recently. At breakfast I make sure to have some complex carbs, and then after the workout I load up on simple sugars. Other than that, my diet is fairly low carb, high protein, moderate fat. Is that viable, long term? I have done Atkins in the past, but I found that I was not able to do the intensity that I previously did.sure, a TKD is more or less how you describe, primarily carbs only pre/post workout, none with other meals. you can live like that indefinitely, there is no such thing as an essential carb

Thanks for the huge amount of feedback! Sorry it took so long, my retarded ISP had a major issue in my area and I just got the Internet back. Going to respond to the comments in no particular order.

--I'll cut out the ice cream from the post workout shake. I'm hearing some mixed feedback about the post-workout insulin spike. Should I maybe try with some frozen fruit instead in the shake? The powdered gatorade sounds somewhat nasty, honestly.

--I was trying to use heavy cream + water to replace milk with, since I was concerned about the amount of sugar in it. Should I just not fuss and go for semi-skim milk instead? I do tend to drink a fair bit of milk, and a 12g of sugar per cup, that eats up my daily carbs *really* fast.

--Should I replace the regular cheese with cottage cheese? That wouldn't get around the dairy aspect, although the fat/protein ratio is a lot better on cottage cheese.

--I'm not sure if water retention is an issue or not. I do notice on some days I look significantly more muscular then others, where the actual weight difference is *maybe* a pound or two. I'll try to lower my salt intake, see if maybe that will help out. Anything else I can do to help with excess water?

--I'll try to cutout sandwich meat, it was mainly a convenience issue. Do most of you cook chicken in bulk, then reheat individual servings?

--My goal macro nutrients are around 300g protein (1200 cal), 100g carbs (400 cal), and 150g fat (1350 cal), for about 2950 calories per day. It seems like the amount of fat is really high though, should I be shifting some of that into more protein consumption? It seems like all I'm eating is protein these days

Most days I usually don't get to eat all that. I find these days I'm filling up really fast, maybe I'm drinking too much water? I'd estimate I'm drinking something like 8 liters a day, just stupidly thirsty. Between the morning cardio and then the intense workouts, I find I'm normally sweating bullets for like 4-5 hours after the workout.